NFA probes ‘fake’ rice, warns public vs malicious info

The National Food Authority (NFA) yesterday said there is no proof that “fake rice” is being sold in the Philippines.

The agency in its daily monitoring has not found any adulterated or unusual rice stocks in the market.

But NFA said its investigation and enforcement department is nevertheless verifying all reports on the alleged fake rice.

“We have instructed our field personnel to go directly to the people who claim they have purchased what they suspect as fake rice and get samples, rather than wait for them to come to our offices to file a complaint or bring samples,” said Jason Aquino, NFA administrator.

Aquino also warned the NFA will deal with those who are intentionally causing alarm among consumers by spreading wrong information about plastic or fake rice.

He said such is a criminal act that is punishable under Philippine laws.

NFA said a sample of alleged fake rice bought by a consumer from Borongan, Samar is currently being analyzed at the Food Development Center (FDC) laboratory in Taguig City.

NFA enforcement agents have also been sent to another complainant in Taguig City who posted a video of cooked rice molded into a ball and which bounced on the floor. Sample of the rice shall be taken for laboratory analysis although experiments on other authentic rice samples show that any cooked rice shaped into a ball will actually bounce when thrown on a hard object.

In 2015, a report on alleged fake rice in Davao City also caused panic among consumers.

Back then, tests on the sample given to multiple agencies including the NFA-FDC, Philippine Rice Research Institute, International Rice Research Institute, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and the Department of Health proved the strange appearance of the reported fake rice was only due to a retrogradation process involving a series of freezing, thawing and heating.

NFA said retrograded rice is technically stale rice. Rice samples studied two years ago were also found to be contaminated with a plasticizer chemical compound called dibutyl phthalate due to mishandling and contamination from other stocks.

That was regarded an isolated case.

The agency is also urging the public to report observations about any unusual features in the rice that they buy in terms of appearance, smell or taste so it can send enforcement agents to the source of the stocks and samples can be taken for laboratory analysis.

Related News

About Malaya

Malaya Business Insight's weekday sections treat readers to timely articles on shipping, banking, information and technology, automotive and motoring, real estate and property development, travel and tourism and people and sectoral events. Special issues and supplements are designed to enrich current information and data files of readers with pre-selected topics of national and local significance.